Dale Bred ewes and lambs with Pen-Y-Ghent beyond The dramatic profile of Pen-Y-Ghent and the heather fell of Plover Hill dominated our day. The wind was cold and blustery and cloud scudded over the fells, casting them in shadow until the sun spotlit the moors. A flock of Dale Bred ewes and lambs mistook us for the farmer come to feed them. But as we prepared to set out he arrived on his quad bike with his sheepdog running after and the flock following. Marsh marigolds gave a splash of colour in wet pastures, and lapwing were rising and calling in tumbling flight.
We headed for Fountains Fell to the sound track of skylark and curlew. A bleak landscape of peat hags and traces of heather with bright greens of sphagna in blanket bog. It seemed the habitat for golden plover and as we climbed I heard them. At the cairn we found a pair amongst the peat hags and grasses and stood and watched. When sunlight catches golden plover in breeding plumage the bird is resplendent and its habit of standing on hummock or rim of peat hag helps find it. If the bird turns its back on you that mantle of greenish gold vanishes amongst the moorland grasses. We walked on to catch the others in our small group and the pair flew calling.
Lunch was a Wuthering Heights experience. On Darnbrook Fell, we sheltered behind a stone wall and the wind whistled and moaned through its stones. I 've always loved to see the moors white with the seed heads of common cotton grass that grows in pools and in the wettest of places. Hare's-tail cotton grass prefers less wet ground, though on blanket bog everywhere can be rather wet and our boots squeaked and squelched as we walked. Peat hag terrain was dark chocolate, washed into fine silt by downpours. We set out on limestone below Pen-Y-Ghent but here were fine gravels eroded out of sandstone and grit-stone.
The vegetation was diverse and changing. There was sphagnum moss, bilberry leaves, cow berry budding and soon to flower, and crowberry. I spied crisp green leaves fresh and unfurling amongst sphagna and ericas. Cloudberry scarcely found in Cumbria. Last year, a little later in June, I found the plant on East Baugh Fell but without flowers- only the red sepals that, for a moment, we mistook for the flower. Now I came upon a few white flower buds. It scarcely seemed a summer’s day. Vistas of bleak moorland, boggy underfoot. But at our feet a wealth of colour and texture, an interweave of flora with hummocks of ericas and sphagna and all with the freshness of spring that comes late to the moors. Fresh bilberry shoots tinged with pink, budding cow berry, wintry-looking heather, clumps of hare’s tail cotton grass with white plumes of seed heads, cotton grass in wetter places. Always more to discover.
The vegetation was diverse and changing. There was sphagnum moss, bilberry leaves, cow berry budding and soon to flower, and crowberry. I spied crisp green leaves fresh and unfurling amongst sphagna and ericas. Cloudberry scarcely found in Cumbria. Last year, a little later in June, I found the plant on East Baugh Fell but without flowers- only the red sepals that, for a moment, we mistook for the flower. Now I came upon a few white flower buds. It scarcely seemed a summer’s day. Vistas of bleak moorland, boggy underfoot. But at our feet a wealth of colour and texture, an interweave of flora with hummocks of ericas and sphagna and all with the freshness of spring that comes late to the moors. Fresh bilberry shoots tinged with pink, budding cow berry, wintry-looking heather, clumps of hare’s tail cotton grass with white plumes of seed heads, cotton grass in wetter places. Always more to discover.
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